Creating a Perfect Science Poster Presentation

Every student is supposed to participate in the conference at least once in their academic career and thus, need to make a poster in PowerPoint. Some of them enjoy the process of networking and can communicate their message easily; however, the statistics says that people find hard sciences to be boring and less interesting if it is not the course of their study. If you are a student of STEM disciplines, you are most likely are looking for a science poster presentation tutorial.

Phase 1. General Information

If you are preparing a scientific poster presentation, you need to clarify certain things before you begin the main course of your work:

what is the main message you are going to share and what methods will help you communicate it better;

who is your audience and what is their level of knowledge and expertise in the subject;

what size of your poster is requested by the conference organizers.

Remember, that proper planning is important if you are going to deal with every aspect of the poster presentation on your own.

Phase 2. Sketch the Layout

If you have read the poster presentation guidelines, you might have noticed that all them usually tell you to have all the content of your presentation figured out before you begin your work. Well, that might not be the only way to approach it. Instead, create a file and begin adding your visuals as well ass preparing blocks for your text. This way you will understand how much text to you need and will be able to match it to the sections you have instead of trying to squeeze a pre-written text in the poster.

Consider the following:

the content may be arranged in the columns (3 to 5) as the longer line is harder to read;

use left-aligned or justified text position and it looks better on the poster;

create the flow from top left to the bottom right corner of your presentation;

make your title huge not only in terms of size, but the idea itself. You have to make people want to come closer to read, so you should come with a name of your poster that is intriguing.

Phase 3. Edit the Content

Every scientific poster template you are going to see is supposed to have a structure you need to mimic. Here is a checklist of sections you are supposed to have on your poster:

heading (your title plus the name of the authors). You may also need to include the logo and name of your school or educational establishment;

introduction (with or without the abstract);

methodology of the research with a description of a chosen approach;

results of the research projects;

discussions of the results described in the previous section (whether they were predicted/unexpected/irrelevant);

contact information.

You should also label all the visual data so when it is referred to, the reader can easily find it. Once you have your text written down, let it sit for a while before you begin editing.

There are 5 rules of the presentation poster editing:

There is always too much text on the poster (recommended word limit is between 300 and 800 words depending on the size of your poster);

Between a graph and a paragraph, choose visuals! People tend to favor visual information more than texts;

Use active voice, but avoid using ‘I’ pronoun (at least there were you and your mentor involved in the process);

Limit your references, but provide a section of how your poster can be referenced;

Have enough of empty spots so the reader can easily tell one section from another and navigate the poster with no panic.

Phase 4. Pay Attention to the Details

Before preparing this article, we have checked numerous science poster-making ideas posts, and rarely could we find advice that is both practical and consistent. So we have divided all the useful information we have into the following sections.

Poster Text

your text should be easy to read from at least 3-4 steps, so choose the font size of at least 18 pt;

avoid using several fonts, better opt for the same fonts but use different sizes and types if the same font;

opt for dark colors for your font as they are said to be easier to read.

Poster Illustrations

As you have guessed, a poster all about the visual representation of your work, so:

use visuals that require the minimum explanation from the text and your presentation;

avoid using images downloaded from the Internet as they tend to have lower resolution and might not print well;

if possible, try to use colors similar to your photographs in your charts (in order to avoid the visual mess).

Poster Design

One of the most controversial areas is the design of your poster, as some experts tend to believe that neutral colors work better, while others argue that you have to stand out from the crowd.

Nevertheless, there is some advice almost everyone agrees about:

choose the colors that will enhance the contrast between the text and background, making it easier to read;

balance the colors with regards to the visuals you have;

if in doubt, stick with a neutral color palette.

Phase 5. Print the Poster

One of the tricks to successfully print your poster is by exporting it as a PDF file. This way you will not have to worry about the layout and fonts, neither would you have problems with different platforms and computer OS. You may need to print your poster on thin plastic or industrial fabrics, in order to make it more durable and protect it from the fading.

Therefore, as you can see, preparing a good poster takes a lot of time. You need to plan the content, and create a template. If you have other tasks to handle, Best-Writing-Service.com offers our assistance with preparing a perfect science poster presentation on your behalf. Contact us right now to see how we can help you!